EXPLAINING SANREMO
(PART 1) Last week I was swept away, helpless, by the avalanche that is the Sanremo Song Festival and I am still recovering. For your safety, I’ve tried to keep the insanity contained on my Italian side blog. But I want to try to offer you a rough summary of what I’ve learned. Sanremo inspired the Eurovision Song Contest. Over five nights, 24 acts, each with a brand new song, compete at the Ariston theatre in Sanremo for a tacky little golden lion, and the glory of being the year’s Song for Italy. 2020 marked the 70th Sanremo, so depending on who you ask, it’s a venerable national treasure or it’s stale and embarrassing (Many Italians are sick of it. Or say they are, but see below.) It is also an EPIC STRUGGLE between THE FORCES OF GOOD AND EVIL FOR THE SOUL OF HUMANITY Let’s meet some of the protagonists:
AKA: host Amadeus, entertainer and comedian Rosario Fiorello, il Bel Paese, and competitor Achille Lauro.
Amadeus got things off to a bad start before the show even began by praising his various female co-hosts - all seasoned TV professionals - for their beauty and their ability to stay “a step behind a man.” Outrage ensues, Amadeus claims he did not mean it like that, but keep this in mind for later. Also competing are Morgan (below, left) and Bugo (below, right.), who are performing a duet.
Going in, the one thing I know about Morgan is that on more than one occasion, he trashtalked my beloved and blameless Fabrizio Moro. So I hate him. And apparently he has quite the reputation for throwing tantrums, picking on fellow-artists and sabotaging events he’s part of. But hey. He’s supposedly talented and Bugo clearly thinks he deserves another chance. And we’re off!
Irene Grandi kicks things off with “Finalmente Io” (“Finally Me”). But I’m starting with her not so much because she’s the first to sing as because I don’t think the song’s got enough attention – either for the fact that it bangs or for what it represents in the drama that’s about to unfold.
Finalmente Io is what, in the business, we call foreshadowing.
There’s a magical thing that happens to women with when they turn 40. The develop Not-Giving-A-Fuck superpowers. The song is basically about that. It’s about freedom, and self-acceptance, and being 100% done with male bullshit. (It’s also a bit of an ADHD anthem but let’s leave that aside for now.) “I’ve lost all my patience, and all my fragility,” she sings.
And, “If you want sex, let’s do it now. Heeeeeeere.”
Irene is the portent everyone misses, a harbinger of what is to come.
Think of her as John the Baptist. Onwards. So the first thing one discovers about the Sanremo Festival is that just because we have to get through 24 “big” acts AND 6 (?) new/junior artists, and they all have to perform multiple times, that doesn’t mean there’s any RUSH. Guest singers wander on and perform a song or ten. There’s comedy. We can stop everything to talk about football. A lady comes on and talks for a million years about how her granny taught her that True Beauty is Found Within. There are also speeches about important subjects like violence against women. In fact, we are going to talk about that a lot, but also a bunch of competent and experienced female TV personalities are stuck taking turns at playing Amadeus’s Glamorous Assistant of the evening and he can’t shut up about how beautiful they all are while they cringe and lean subtly away from him. So it’s … slow, and awkward, but within its own cheesy terms, things are normal. Too normal. Enter Achille Lauro.
Softly, almost whispering, he begins to sing a song called “Me ne frego” (”I don’t care” - but with an edge of “fuck you”). This is both an everyday Italian expression and a fascist motto. Well, it was till now.
A nation is convulsed. Right-wing Italian boomers are screaming because YOU! CAN’T! DO! THAT! AT! SANREMO! THERE! ARE! CHILDREN! WATCHING! Italian Tumblr, which like the rest of Tumblr is feral, thirsty and gay, is screaming for different reasons entirely.
Achille, you scandalous creature, what have you done? What have you got to say for yourself?
Something strange and magical has released and it cannot be contained. On with the songs. Good songs, bad songs, blah songs. I like “Tikibombom” by Levante - a love letter to weirdos and rebels, “Rosso di Rabbia” (Rage Red) by Anastasio about being, well, angry but scared you can’t do anything useful with it, and “Eden” by Rancore, about… the nature of sin?? touching on everything from September 11 to the mafia to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. However, this contest is being judged (mostly - it’s complicated) by an industry jury of FOOLS, COWARDS, and TRAITORS who KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO, so virtually all of the above artists are so far languishing towards the bottom of the provisional rankings. Achille ends up in 17th place and Rancore at 22.
Truly, the light hath shone in the darkness and the darkness knoweth it not.
LOOK WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO RANCORE.
Rapper down, repeat RAPPER DOWN. SEND HELP.
However, for people who went in implacably biased against Morgan, it’s not all bad news. "Sincero” (Sincere) by Morgan and Bugo is in last place. Whether this is anything to do with the song or because Morgan is a nightmare of a person who has systematically alienated everyone in the Italian music industry except the trusting Bugo … we can but ponder. Sanremo grinds on. Days blur into each other and I’m not even going to try to cover events in exact order. Sanremo knows no order. Sanremo is like the universe, linear time is a construct that doesn’t really exist, and chaos happens very, very slowly. But meanwhile, somewhere on the astral plane:
At least that is what I deduce must have happened.
The competitors and guests look deep within themselves. Do they have what it takes? Are they ready to answer the call?
Let’s see! It’s Covers Night! Which is also Duets Night!
That’s Elettra Lamborghini (yes, that Lamborghini) and Myss Keta.
Are they in tune? No. Does it matter? ALSO NO.
Meanwhile … something strange is brewing between Amadeus and Fiorello…
But wait, PLOT TWIST.
Enter Roberto Benigni.
The beloved actor and director is the latest avatar of the Dionysian frenzy that has chosen Sanremo 2020 for the place of its birth. He is the One who will unite the electric queer mayhem and the impossible grinding tedium of Sanremo. In him, the two strains will fuse and become unstoppable. He is going to talk about sex for twenty-six minutes
He reads from the Song of Songs, which … I knew it was sexy, and all, but is it really like that? Do you ever think about NAKED BODIES? Roberto does. Do you believe in PHYSICAL LOVE? Roberto wishes you would. Anyway, just think of all the sex we could all be having, literally right now, right heeeeere, whether we are “a woman, and her man. Or a man and his man. Or a woman, and her woman!” He is awful. He is magnificent. He is excruciating. He is spellbinding. We are hanging on his every word and we are considering chewing our own arms off to escape. He proposes an orgy in the orchestra pit.
Hand on heart, all of that happened. Italian Tumblr, bear witness.
And what of Achille Lauro? He unleashed this madness upon us all, is he just going to sit back and let everyone else do all the work? Of course not. Achille Lauro came to bring not peace, but a sword, to the world of toxic masculinity and gender in general and his work is not yet done.
”I too was once a little girl,” Achille sings.
Dressed as Bowie-as-Ziggy, Achille duets with Annalisa on “Gli Uomini Non Cambiano” - “Men Don’t Change”. It’s a heartbreaking song by Mia Martini from 1992 about male abuse of women, and not a single word, or a single pronoun has been changed.
However, although he’s the one in the competition, and the one dressed to dazzle, he leaves Annalisa the spotlight. It’s like she’s the tortured protagonist of the song and he’s a voice in her head, a sympathetic spirit who can’t swoop in to rescue her but can quietly affirm that she deserves better than the the hellish treatment she’s singing about. in fact, he pointedly stays a step behind her at all times. And she’s majestic.
Of course, he’s not fucking DONE
He’s still got to sing “Me Ne Frego” again. Can he top the cape-drop? You be the judge.
So Italian Tumblr, is now writhing on the carpet, making a sound only bats can hear, and shitposting itself into delirium, but has it all been ENOUGH?
NO. Poor Rancore has died again. Toxic masculinity still exists. Amadeus is still pretty gross. Everyone is going to have to GAY HARDER. CAN THEY DO IT? This post is, like Sanremo itself, getting insanely long, so … STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO, in which Fiorello’s true nature as a chaos being is revealed, Amadeus faces his Calvary, and the gun on the stage goes off.
